


All That I Am or Hope to Be

by ShevatheGun



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Occupation of Bajor, Post-Canon, Post-Dominion War (Star Trek), Prophetic Dreams, Sharing a Body, War Crimes, Zine: Uncertain Times, tfw you need a mom so bad tora naprem comes out of her grave to mom you, the first and last time i acknowledge that season 7 happened, there's a new one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShevatheGun/pseuds/ShevatheGun
Summary: When Kira champions a joint-resolution to send Cardassian collaborators home to face justice, she begins to have prophetic dreams of being Gul Dukat's mistress, Tora Naprem.





	All That I Am or Hope to Be

**Year 2376**

**Deep Space 9**

* * *

The first dream comes to her on the night Shakaar is re-elected First Minister. She should've been in Ashalla to celebrate with him, but a Vulcan science vessel had gotten lost in the wormhole and she’d needed to stick around to oversee the rescue operation. She settles for a call to him from the personal terminal in her quarters, and after an uninterrupted twenty five minutes of conversation and congratulations, she decides not to press her good luck. He looks good - glowing the way he always does after a fight. She smiles at him, affection curling in her chest, and bids him goodnight. She crawls into bed still smiling.

The dream comes on like a slow building fever. In it, she's on her back in the middle of a jungle blanketed in mist so thick she can barely see her hand when she holds it out. She hears the trilling, mournful call of a two-headed bird of paradise somewhere in the canopy.

After a time, she hears the ominous whisper of scales sliding over the ground. The unmistakable shape of a snake passes within inches of her - it’s monstrous, as least twice as long as she is tall, as thick around as one of her legs. She flinches away, tries to sit up, but finds herself paralyzed. Out of the mist, she sees the snake raise up, it's shape indistinct in the fog. She tries to scream, but she makes no sound. Through the mist, she sees the snake’s hood flare out, hears it hiss long and low. She plants her feet against the ground and pushes away with all her might, scooting away from it through the bark and the mud.

The snake looms over her, taller and taller, swaying in place. Kira tries to close her eyes, tries to look away.

“Get away from me,” she hisses.

Then, she blinks, and the snake isn't a snake at all. It's a woman. Kira can barely make out her features - she seems to almost be part of the fog itself. She can only guess at the color of her skin and her eyes; she knows only that the woman is beautiful, ghostly, with short eyelashes that glisten with mist.

The woman peers at her a moment, almost wary. Then she leans forward, soft, sweet face pursed in a look of concern, dainty hand outstretched. Kira’s heart leaps into her mouth.

“Don't touch me!” she cries, and as she does, she hears it echo around her room. 

She's awake, and the woman is gone.

* * *

“Colonel? Your thoughts?”

Kira stifles a yawn against the back of her hand. “We should schedule these meetings later in the day.”

Ro chuckles softly, and Kira risks a grin. “Late night?” Ro asks. “I heard you stayed behind to resolve the situation with the Vulcans.”

It'd been no later than most - Kira is nothing if not hands on. But for some reason, she still feels unnerved by the dream, and she'd rather not talk about it. She simply shrugs noncommittally. 

“I guess I never realized you could get in trouble for helping someone out of a wormhole.”

Ro gives her a skeptical look. “You don't meet many Vulcans, do you?”

There's something about the moment - about how easy and relaxed it is - that makes Kira feel like she's having a premonition. Ro’s comm badge chirps, and Kira could swear she knows what's about to happen before it does.

“ _ Chief, _ ” Shar says. “ _ We've got a situation at Quark’s - you better get down here. _ ”

Ro looks at Kira, and they're both out of their chairs before she can bark, “On my way.”

When they arrive, the promenade is already crowded with gawkers. Ro shoulders her way into the bar with Kira right behind her - over the sea of bobbing heads, Kira catches sight of Shar’s white locs and pushes towards them.

As she gets closer, she sees the source of the commotion: two officers, one Starfleet, one Bajoran militia, neither of them security, have pinned a Cardassian woman between them. She’s haggard and wide-eyed, her thick headfeathers puffed up and pulling out of her elaborate braid, her tail still whipping fruitlessly at the floor. She’s dangerously thin, panting open-mouthed, looking around frantically, as though she’s expecting someone to save her. 

“What’s going on?” Kira asks.

“Colonel!” Both officers jump to attention, very nearly releasing their hold on the Cardassian woman. She lurches between them. One of the security team, newly-arrived, darts in to hold help secure her.

“Colonel,” Shar says, moving forward to join them. “This woman attacked Lieutenant Pak - we had to intervene.”

“You should’ve called earlier,” Ro snaps, waving her men in. They push through the crowd and nimbly dodge the fallen tables and thrown chairs. There’s silverware embedded in the walls.

“I know,” Shar says, antenna stiff. “It got a little out of hand.”

Kira pulls away from them, moving slowly towards the Cardassian. She’s hissing low in her throat, still looking wildly around. 

“What’s her name?” Kira asks the militia officer. They only shrug and shake their head, so Kira turns to the woman. “Your name,” she says, trying to hold her gaze.

The woman offers no reply but a low moan. Behind her, Kira hears Ro’s security-issue PADD chime, using face-recognition to produce an answer.

“Dalsha Lekkari,” Ro says. 

The Cardassian woman whips her head around. “Oh, you horrible little thing, don’t say my name! You’ll give me away!”

“Who is she?” Kira asks.

Ro furrows her brow, frowning. “She’s a war criminal.”

The woman - Dalsha Lekkari - jerks, shoulders snapping forward as she makes a renewed effort to escape. “Unhand me!” she shouts. “Let me go!”

“She was here during the Occupation?” Kira asks, blood churning with old hatred, freshly unearthed.

“Not one of ours,” Ro says, looking up at her. “One of theirs.”

Kira looks at her, then, slowly, turns again to look at Lekkari, who continues to squirm and writhe like she doesn’t have five armed phasers pointed at her.

“Let me go!” Lekkari gasps. She looks feverish. “Let me go, I’ll give you whatever you want!”

Kira gives Ro a nod, and Ro returns it.

“Take her to the brig,” Ro says, and with that, the officers drag her off, still shrieking.

* * *

 

“She’s taking halliprazine,” Bashir announces as he walks back into the security office from the brig. “The highest dose I’ve ever seen prescribed.”

“What for?” Kira asks. 

“Paranoid delusions,” Bashir explains. He returns his medical tricorder to the bag over his shoulder, looking handsome and tired, the way he always does now. “Halliprazine is an incredibly strong antipsychotic - and it interacts poorly with alcohol. I’m told someone bought her a drink and she didn’t want to seem rude.” 

“I think in most cultures, throwing a table across the room counts as rude,” Ro says, coming back from the replicator. She hands Kira a steaming cup of raktajino, and their fingers brush along the handle. Kira tries to ignore the electricity that skims her skin at the slightest touch.

Bashir tips his head, accepting their point. “I’ve administered a small dose of theragen to stabilize her.”

“Theragen?” Ro asks.

“A tranquilizer,” Bashir explains. “I didn’t want to give her anything else that might affect her mood. Whoever designed her drug regimen may be in need of a few antipsychotics themselves.”

Kira nods. “Thanks, Julian.”

He nods back, claps her on the shoulder. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” Then, he heads out the door.

Kira plucks her PADD from Ro’s desk and puts her feet up, reviewing the footage from the bar. Ro continues reviewing Lekkari’s personnel file on her terminal.

“Thought I recognized the name,” she murmurs. “Looks like she was the governor of Omekla III.”

“During the war?” Kira asks.

Ro nods. “Looks that way.”

Kira takes a sip of her raktajino, trying to muscle down the righteous fury that ignites in her chest.

“Ten thousand people died,” she says.

“If I were responsible for that, I’d be pretty paranoid too,” Ro says, and they share a look over the desk.

Kira kicks her legs off the desk and stands, rage making her bones ache. 

“Call Ops, tell them to set up a call with the Cardassian ambassador.” She pauses. “...and Shakaar. I want to talk to him.”

Ro nods. “You want to take this?”

“She’s responsible for the death of thousands,” Kira says. “I want to know what she’s doing on my station.”

* * *

 

“I’m here to meet a friend,” Lekkari says, like it’s that simple.

“A friend,” Kira repeats. 

Dalsha Lekkari is an entirely different person, now that the medication has taken effect. She isn’t whipping her head around, her eyes no longer bulge out of her head. She’s replaited her feathers, and they surround her fine-boned head in an intricate wreath. She sits very still in her cell, the picture of calm, save for the anxious scraping of one of her nails against the back of her hand.

“Yes.” Kira can hear the slightest hint of fear in Lekkari’s voice, but she masks it well. “This station was agreed upon as a neutral meeting place.”

Kira stares at her, then grins angrily, showing all her teeth. “I fought side by side with Corat Damar,” she says. “You really think this is a ‘neutral meeting place’?”

Lekkari’s ridges pale and she tightens her lips. “I had nothing to do with that,” she says. “And I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Nothing?” Kira stares at her, galled. “You oversaw the massacre of Omekla III. Ten thousand Cardassian men, women, and children slaughtered by the Dominion - on your watch.”

Lekkari swallows thickly, her long throat bobbing. “That isn’t a crime  _ you _ can punish me for, girl.” 

She shifts in her seat, straightening her shoulders. “I overturned a few tables and chairs - let me pay my fine and be on my way.”

“You attacked a Starfleet officer,” Kira snaps. “That’s more than enough to hold you on until your people come to collect.”

All at once, Lekkari’s collected demeanor falters. Her ridges blanch paper white, and her chin trembles.

“You can’t turn me over to them,” she says. Kira turns to walk away and she cries after her: “Please! I’ve done no wrong by you!”

Kira feels a stab of fury drive through her chest. She whips around.

“Ten thousand people!” she shouts. “Not soldiers, not combatants. Civilians - factory workers forced to make weapons for the Dominion. And when the time came, you turned them and their families over to the Jem’hadar to be slaughtered. I don’t know how they do it on Cardassia, but around here, we have a word for people like you:  _ collaborator. _ ”

Lekkari stares up at her, expression pinched. The nail of her thumb is digging into the back of her hand deep enough to draw dark beads of blood.

“You could never understand,” she murmurs. “I had no choice - it’s no business of yours anyway! No Bajoran can understand what I went through. I was loyal to the Union! I didn’t choose to ally with the Dominion, that was our destiny. I only did as I was told!”

Kira clenches her fists, disgust churning through her. “You’re a coward.”

“Yes!” Lekkari says, voice trembling. “Yes, girl, perhaps I am, but I have been true - I have been true to Cardassia! I never wanted anyone to die.”

“You can tell that to Cardassia, then,” Kira spits, the faces of ten thousand corpses rushing through her mind in a torrent. “We’ll see how loyal they think you’ve been.”

“No,” Lekkari wibbles, “no, please, have mercy!”

Kira clenches her fist so tight her knuckles go white.

“When the workers of Omekla begged you for mercy, what did you say, Governor?”

Lekkari’s face goes ever more pale. She pulls her shaking hands to her chest, jaw clenched, eyes wide. She doesn’t seem to have answer.

Kira nods. “That’s what I thought.”

She leaves the way she came in, her blood red with anger.

* * *

 

“People like this deserve to suffer, Edon.” She pounds her desk with her fist. “Bajoran and Cardassian alike - the massacre’s only the start of it, she was directly responsible for putting guns in the hands of those murderers. The Cardassian people deserve to see people like her pay for what they did.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” Shakaar says. “But you know how I feel about Cardassian due process. Governor Lekkari might be a simple enough case - but a joint resolution will have us turning over every Cardassian collaborator we find, regardless of circumstance. We won’t be in a position to make any demands of how they treat their prisoners.”

A wave of betrayal goes through Kira, bitter and twisting. “I don’t care how they treat them! People like this - they deserve the worst of what the Cardassians can do to them. They’ve earned it.”

Shakaar regards her quietly for a moment - his silence feels damning, but at the end, he simply nods.

“I’ll take your recommendation to heart,” he tells her.

Twenty-six hours later, the joint resolution is signed. Kira approves the prison transport for Lekkari with a grim sense of satisfaction. The worst punishment imaginable is the least of what she deserves.

* * *

 

In the dream, she’s walking through the same jungle, on and on, until the earth turns to the hard floor of the station beneath her feet. She pushes aside the thick frond of a fern and passes through a doorway into what she recognizes, instantly, as Sisko’s quarters. She stares around, moving slowly through the halls, a hard pit of dread resting in her empty stomach. Instead of being adorned with ancient Terran artifacts, the walls are draped with vines and Bajoran tapestries, long, colorful bolts of cloth and vases of flowers - orchids, irises, peonies - so dense that they nearly crowd her from the room.

As she passes into the living room, she sees someone sitting on the couch: a Cardassian, tall, broad shouldered and thin-limbed. 

A shard of ice presses into her spine. She’d recognize him anywhere.

_ Dukat. _

She’s caught him unawares. He has his back to her, ankle hooked over his knobby knee, foot bobbing as he reads something on his PADD. She reaches for her phaser, but her waist is bare. Her heart thunders, throat tight.

But before she can reach for a different weapon, she’s interrupted - a small child darts out of her hiding place behind one of the obelisks and launches herself into Kira’s legs with a cry of delight. 

“Mama! You’re home!”

The ice dripping along Kira’s spine hardens, paralyzing her. She kneels down, breath coming short, and the child beams at her, the spoon on her forehead soft where it meets the ridges on her nose. She’s so small - almost unrecognizable with tufts of downy feathers sticking up in unruly clumps all over her head, but the radiant joy in her face is unmistakable.

“Ziyal,” Kira whispers, and the girl cries out, throwing her arms around her neck. Kira can’t resist the urge to pull her close, to feel her warmth one last time - to feel Ziyal’s heart beating against her palm where it’s pressed between her small shoulder blades.

A shadow falls across her and she looks up - terror and hatred combust in her chest, and she pulls Ziyal closer. Dukat smiles down at her, and she stands, feet numb. 

“Welcome home,” he says, and there’s a strange tenderness in his smug face that she doesn’t recognize. When he cups her cheek, she flinches. She tries to pull away from him, cradling Ziyal to her chest - she can get away, she thinks. She can run, take Ziyal with her - far, far away from her father. 

Then, Dukat leans forward in an ominous way, and Kira tries to pull back, tries to force her body to move.

But against her will, her body turns towards him - her face lifts, her lips part. She feels a strange haziness surround her heart, even as her mind screams its dissent. Dukat’s lips meet hers in a slow, soft kiss, his skin unnaturally cold, and Kira feels a freakish, detached sort of pleasure as he does.

He releases her, and she trembles with revulsion, unable to stand herself. In a fit of pique, she turns her head sharply, eyes meeting the only mirror in the room.

She finds a monstrous cobra reflected back at her, beady eyes unblinking.

She shrieks so loud it wakes her neighbors.

* * *

 

The joint resolution moves swiftly - soon they’re intercepting a few Cardassian collaborators each week, shipping them back to Cardassia Prime in chains. Kira takes vindication in it. Ever since the war ended, progress has been so hard to quantify. But for every collaborator she feeds into Cardassia’s parched mouth, she feels a sense of accomplishment. Traitors, she thinks, all of them. 

The first interruption of her newfound peace of mind comes a day before Governor Lekkari’s trial begins. Ro comms her from her office.

“Colonel? There’s someone here to see you.”

She goes, puzzled, to the security office, and finds Ro there with a tall Cardassian woman whose wreath-like braid looks oddly familiar.

“Colonel,” says the Cardassian, before Ro can begin. She’s pretty, if a bit thin, her ridges dark with grief. “Please - my name is Naru Lekkari. Three weeks ago, my mother came to this station to meet with my uncle, but he returned to tell me that she had been arrested. Please, please tell me you haven’t sent her back to Cardassia.”

Kira feels her heart sink, slowly, into the depths of her. She swallows, a pang of dread sounding through her. For some reason, she thinks of the dreams.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Your mother was wanted by the Cardassian government. There was nothing we could’ve done.”

Naru’s mouth falls open, and Kira hears her breath hitch. “My mother is very ill,” she says, unevenly. “There’s been a mistake, please…”

“I’m sorry,” Kira says, keeping her voice as even as possible. “I realize this must be difficult to hear. But your mother was a war criminal.”

“She committed no crimes!” Naru cries. “She deserted her post, yes - she cooperated with the Dominion, but she had no choice! Those were her orders. Don’t you understand? If you sent her back to Cardassia - she’ll be executed!”

“Yes,” Kira says. “I imagine she will.”

She braces just in time for the slap. It rings through the office, and Kira stands there, cheek burning, as Ro hauls Naru Lekkari off, still sobbing.

* * *

 

She should have contacted Garak straight away - she realizes that now. It’s been hard to establish any long range communications with Cardassia Prime, but she knows better than to second guess Garak at this point. When he wants to speak with her, he finds a way - simple tailor that he is.

“You look good, Colonel. A bit tired, I suspect? But no one could blame you…”

Even Garak’s whitest lies are transparent. Kira knows for a fact she looks like hell. She hasn’t been sleeping well - dream after dream has infected her like a plague, each nightmare filled with snakes, with that strange woman’s face. 

“What about you, Garak?” she asks. “Where are you now?”

“Oh, I’m afraid I never stay anywhere too long,” Garak says, no doubt to those who might be listening in on their call.  “And for that matter, I regret to say that I no longer have the luxury of lengthy conversations - at least, at this distance.”

Kira nods. “Joto said you wanted to speak to me.”

“Indeed I did,” Garak says, his odd, clucking inflection comforting and familiar. “It’s my understanding, Colonel, that my homeland has you to thank for championing the joint resolution that has brought so many undesirables back to us in chains.”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, my dear,” he says, “I do wish you hadn’t done that.”

“What?” Kira’s brow creases, and she smiles, confused - a little irritated. “Garak, you don’t have any more love for these people than I do.”

“Oh, yes - that much is very true. In better times, I imagine I would have been responsible for hunting them down myself.” He tips his head, giving her one of his signature bug-eyed looks. “But these are  _ not _ better times, Colonel.”

“You’re right. Cardassia could use a little justice right now.”

“So it could! But Colonel,” Garak says, “surely you don’t believe that the punishment that awaits these offenders will be just?”

Kira feels a twinge of guilt in her stomach. “What do you mean?”

“Why, it’s only natural - even with my best efforts, Cardassia’s people continue to suffer immensely. In times of great suffering, I find that justice often becomes conflated with vengeance. Whatever your intentions, I’m afraid you’ve only provided the people of Cardassia with a scapegoat from which they can exact penance, which, however cathartic, can only drain what few resources we have left. These trials will only lead to more violence.”

The guilt settles in, heavy and hard. Kira bunches her fists.

“We fought for this, Garak. People died for this - people I loved. People  _ you _ loved. They died to protect Cardassia and Bajor from the Dominion. The people I’m sending back? They would’ve gladly let the Dominion kill us all. So many good people are dead - the least we can do is make sure collaborators like Lekkari join them.”

Garak peers at her over the viewscreen.

“Colonel,” he says. “As ever, I admire your determination. But I would ask: how do you suppose we go about creating a better future, when so much of your energy is being devoted to punishing the criminals of a war that is over, in the name of a movement that no longer exists?”

* * *

 

The nightmares are unceasing. In each, she inhabits the chubby body of a stranger, victim to its whims. Each one feels less like a dream than a memory, as though she's being invaded by the presence of another woman.

Her days are colored by endless drudgery, punctured by increasingly uneasy arrests. Her nights are spent paralyzed, held in someone else's body like a prison, forced to acquiesce to the deep kisses of a dead man.

The day after the call with Garak, she dreams that she's back in the work camp in Dakhur, not as herself, but as the Other Woman, whoever she is. The work camp sits on one side of a wall of glass, and she sits on the other, draped in Dukat's lap. Through the glass, she can see a Cardassian soldier dragging a Bajoran man away from his wife, leading him to the center of the camp. He shouts to the people gathering around him but she can't hear what he's saying. No sound makes it through the glass. The scene plays out like a recording, even though it's only happening a few feet away.

_ Do something _ , Kira thinks frantically, eyeing the soldier’s weapon.  _ Stop him! _

She can't tear her eyes from the scene, but she can feel Dukat running his hand through her hair. His body beneath hers is broad and bony, all gristle. She shivers when he presses his mouth to her ear, feeling sick as his lips warm the metal of her d’ja pagh earring. On the other side of the glass, the soldier forces the man to his knees.

_ Do something! _

Dukat's deep voice in her ear is so close she swears it's real.

“Naprem,” he whispers. “I promise - no harm will come to him. You have my word.”

Kira watches the soldier shoot the man in the head. A second later, Dukat’s kissing her. When Kira stumbles to the bathroom to vomit, she regrets that it's not because of the execution, but because she can still feel his tongue in her mouth, can still hear the softest, breathiest moan that escaped her in a voice not her own. 

She throws up until she has nothing left worth gagging on, and falls asleep on the bathroom floor.

* * *

 

Eventually, she gives up sleep altogether - at least as much as she can. She drinks raktajino like water, convinces Bashir to give her something for the headaches without explaining what's causing them. At night, she manages to only doze, holding herself in a suspended state of almost-sleep for hours.

This only works for a few days before the nightmares manifest there, too. She dreams the snake is in her bed, lying in wait to strangle and consume her as soon as she falls into deeper slumber. She can feel its weight on her chest, crushing her ribs. She stays very still, barely breathing, heart pounding.

“Nerys,” a gentle voice whispers. She feels her bed sink beneath the snake’s weight, but she could swear someone else is there - someone who smells like peonies. A soft, small hand cups her cheek, running through her hair.

“Nerys,” someone says, in a soft voice like honey - a voice that's almost familiar. “It’s alright. You're safe.”

“There’s a snake,” Kira whispers. “There’s a snake in my bed…”

“There's no snake,” the voice whispers. In an instant, Kira feels the weight evaporate from on top of her. “Go to sleep, darling. I'll protect you. Your mother would never forgive me if I didn't.”

Kira sinks into sleep, and doesn't wake up for two full days.

* * *

 

The execution of Governor Dalsha Lekkari is televised. Kira watches it in her office - only meters from the execution block, the eager crowd breaks through barriers on either side and grab Lekkari by the arms, rending her limb from limb in living color. Violet blood coats the floor of the judiciary as they tear her body apart. No soldiers move to shield her from the crowd’s wrath. Lekkari’s shrieking pleas for mercy echo around the room long after Kira’s jabbed the button to terminate the broadcast.

She makes the call to Garak as soon as she can speak again.

“We’ll terminate the joint resolution,” she says, fighting her gag reflex. 

Garak, on his part, gazes at her with an almost mischievous glint in his eye.

“A wise decision,” he says. “And may I say, Colonel - how much you've grown.”

* * *

 

In the dream, she's putting Ziyal to bed, folding her tiny body into the sheets in a thick, silky shroud. 

“But I'm not sleepy,” Ziyal whines around a yawn. “I don't want to go to bed.”

Kira feels her body laugh, feels a deep curl of affection as she runs her fingers through Ziyal's patchy mix of feathers and hair.

“How unfortunate then that you  _ must _ ,” she says. 

“But Father isn't home yet!” Ziyal wriggles, lifting her arms, demanding attention. “And I want a story. Tell me a story, pleeeease?” 

Kira leans into those small arms, laying down beside her, cradling her close. She presses her forehead to Ziyal's, nuzzling her nose. 

“A story,” she sighs. “Alright - once upon a time--”

“Nooo!” Ziyal whines. She wriggles closer, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “A secret story.”

Kira has no idea what she means, but her body does. She feels a twist of bitterness, but the smile that spreads across her mouth is anything but.

“A secret story,” she whispers back. “Then let me tell you about your future - someday, you and I will grow wings and fly far away from here. And the skies will ring with song - and you,  _ tesh'akayah, _ will be a princess. There will be no more fighting, and you and I… we’ll go out whenever we want.”

Ziyal's face is a picture of childish wonder. “Whenever we want?”

“Yes. And wherever we like. Everyone will know your name. We’ll dance in the street, and I'll take you to meet your grandmother.”

“And Father?”

Kira feels a twinge of guilt in her heart, but she only smiles wider. 

“Your Father will come with us.”

“And Bajor?” Ziyal asks, a hopeful lilt to her voice.

Kira presses her lips to Ziyal's forehead, heart aching.

“Bajor will be free,” she whispers. “And so will we.”

The room drops away, and suddenly, Kira’s aware of being in her own body again. In her arms, she feels a much bigger weight than Ziyal - a thick, pudgy body that sags against her. She draws back, and pushes the sheets away from the figure’s face.

Tora Naprem is more beautiful than Kira imagined she could be. Her short, dark hair falls across her pretty face, her brown skin pockmarked with scars. Kira is aware of her weight, the heat of her skin, even as the room around them dissolves into a desert.

Even as she sees her, she hates her. She hates all that she is, all that she chose. She hates knowing, from the inside, what she’s known was true since the instant she met Ziyal: Dukat wasn’t lying when he said Naprem loved him. Kira wishes desperately that he had been.

_ Traitor _ , her mind gasps,  _ collaborator! _ She remembers the man being shot on the other side of the glass as Dukat leaned in to kiss her - not her; Naprem, surrounded by a bubble of domestic bliss as their people suffered.

But she tastes the secret story on her lips, the one Naprem told her daughter; she recognizes the ache in her heart. 

_ Freedom _ , she thinks - is that really what she wanted? Kira feels the weight of her craving, and as she cradles her, she can’t help but speak, even as she hears in the distance the rising clamor of a mob coming for them across the sand. 

“You're free,” she whispers.

She sees Tora’s eyes flutter, and when she meets them, she feels the sand beneath them begin to part. Tora lifts her hand to Kira’s cheek, and together, they begin to sink.

“So are you, Nerys.”

When Kira’s arms bristle with feathers, she spreads them. The sand beneath them turns to sky. And with the taste of blood in her mouth, Kira Nerys soars, flying towards the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as a submission to the Uncertain Times Zine, published in August 2018 a few weeks before STLV. (A digital copy of the zine is available here: https://bit.ly/2Bqd7n3)
> 
> I have mixed feelings about this particular piece - it was originally intended to be much longer and more involved. However, once I'd finished it, I felt satisfied in seeing it realized on a much smaller scale. Maybe I'll go back to it, maybe I won't. Either way, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share it with all of you. As we near the end of the year, original projects have pulled me away from a more aggressive publishing schedule for my ST works, but they're still very much on my mind, as are all of you. <3 LLAP


End file.
